Modular SOS (MSOS) is a variant of conventional Structural Operational Semantics (SOS). Using MSOS, the transition rules for each construct of a programming language can be given incrementally, once and for all, and do not need reformulation when further constructs are added to the language. MSOS thus provides an exceptionally high degree of modularity in language descriptions, removing a shortcoming of the original SOS framework. After sketching the background and reviewing the main features of SOS, the paper explains the crucial differences between SOS and MSOS, and illustrates how MSOS descriptions are written. It also discusses standard notions of semantic equivalence based on MSOS. Appendix A shows how the illustrative MSOS rules given in the paper would be formulated in conventional SOS.

A novel form of labelled transition system is proposed, where the labels are the arrows of a category, and adjacent labels in computations are required to be composable. Such transition systems provide the foundations for modular SOS descriptions of programming languages. Three

We present real time and discrete time versions of ACP with absolute timing and relative timing. The starting-point isanewrealtimeversion with absolute timing, called ACPsat, featuring urgent actions and a delay operator. The discrete time versions are conservative extensions of the discrete time versions of ACP being known as ACP dat and ACP drt. The principal version is an extension of ACP sat with integration and initial abstraction to allow for choices over an interval of time and relative timing to be expressed. Its main virtue is that it generalizes ACP without timing and most other versions of ACP with timing in a smooth and natural way. This is shown for the real time version with relative timing and the discrete time version with absolute timing.

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Traditionally, in process calculi, relations over open terms, i.e., terms with free process variables, are defined as extensions of closed-term relations: two open terms are related if and only if all their closed instantiations are related. Working in the context of bisimulation, in this paper we study a different approach; we define semantic models for open terms, so-called conditional transition systems, and define bisimulation directly on those models. It turns out that this can be done in at least two different ways, one giving rise to De Simone's formal hypothesis bisimilarity and the other to a variation which we call hypothesis-preserving bisimilarity (denoted t fh and t hp, respectively). For open terms, we have (strict) inclusions t fh /t hp / t ci (the latter denoting the standard ``closed instance' ' extension); for closed terms, the three coincide. Each of these relations is a congruence in the usual sense. We also give an alternative characterisation of t hp in terms of nonconditional transitions, as substitution-closed bisimilarity (denoted t sb). Finally, we study the issue of recursion congruence: we prove that each of the above relations is a congruence with respect to the recursion operator; however, for t ci this result holds under more restrictive conditions than for tfh and thp.]

) Peter D. Mosses 1;2 1 BRICS and Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark 2 Visiting SRI International and Stanford University, USA Abstract. A novel form of labelled transition system is proposed, where the labels are the arrows of a category, and adjacent labels in computations are required to be composable. Such transition systems provide the foundations for modular SOS descriptions of programming languages. Three fundamental ways of transforming label categories, analogous to monad transformers, are provided, and it is shown that their applications preserve computations in modular SOS. The approach is illustrated with fragments taken from a modular SOS for ML concurrency primitives. 1 Introduction SOS (structural operational semantics) is a widely-used framework for defining process algebras [12, e.g.] and programming languages [13, e.g.]. Following Plotkin [22], SOS has often been preferred to the more abstract framework of denotational seman...

This article presents a congruence format, in structural operational semantics, for rooted branching bisimulation equivalence. The format imposes additional requirements on Groote’s ntyft format. It extends an earlier format by Bloom with standard notions such as recursion, iteration, predicates, and negative premises. 1

We transpose a conservative extension theorem from structural operational semantics to conditional term rewriting. The result is useful for the development of software renovation factories, and for modular specification of abstract data types.

Abstract. In this paper, we give novel and more liberal notions of operational and equational conservativity for language extensions. We motivate these notions by showing their practical application in existing formalisms. Based on our notions, we formulate and prove meta-theorems that establish conservative extensions for languages defined using Structural

Certain principles are fundamental to operational semantics, regardless of the languages or idioms involved. Such principles include rule-based definitions and proof techniques for congruence results. We formulate these principles in the general context of categorical logic. From this general formulation we recover precise results for particular language idioms by interpreting the logic in particular categories. For instance, results for first-order calculi, such as CCS, arise from considering the general results in the category of sets. Results for languages involving substitution and name generation, such as the π-calculus, arise from considering the general results in categories of sheaves and group actions. As an extended example, we develop a tyft/tyxt-like rule format for open bisimulation in the π-calculus.